Starting Over
by Meridian1
Summary: Not a vampire, but not quite human. The Rebuilding, reshaping, remolding of Hannibal King. Sequel to "Coming Clean." (complete)
1. Knowledge is Power

Title: Starting Over

Author: Meridian

Rating: PG-13

Author's Notes: This is a sequel to my piece "Coming Clean," which dwelt on the pathology of the EDTA cure for vampirism. But the cure itself is not the full course of a victim's recovery, certainly not for a person who was held for as long as Hannibal King claims he was in _Blade: Trinity_. This second piece explores the distance left to travel for an ex-vampire before he regains his humanity and embarks on his new adventure Also, just a little insight of my own about the workings of the Nightstalkers, their dynamic, their motivations, that sort of thing. Enjoy.

* * *

**1. Knowledge is Power**

"What've you got?"

Dex threw the file folder onto the table; the thick stack slapped the marbled top, clicking where various bulldog binder clips stuck out here and there. Hedges whistled.

"You're sure he's asleep," Abby eyed the folder warily.

"He won't be up for another hour, vampire metabolism or not," Sommerfield answered, miming plunging a syringe into thin air. She extended a finger towards the file, having pinpointed its position using her extraordinary hearing. "My, my."

"That's everything," Dex mitigated, understanding their surprise.

"Yeah, but _still_," Hedges gawked, and Abby knew what he meant. Vampires thrived because they took out the unloved, the unnoticed, the unwanted. This ream of paper was atypical, just like the focus of the contents, one King, Hannibal A. Abby snorted. 'A'? Did she even want to know what that stood for?

"What's his story, Dex?"

"Well, he's not local."

"What's that mean? Not from L.A. or not from California?"

Dex shook his head. "Not from the U.S., Abby. He's Canadian."

Abby thought about this. Yeah, she could see it, maybe, in the way he held out certain vowels sometimes, that strange twang that turned some of his 'ow's into 'ou's. It wasn't pronounced, not after years in the U.S. under Danica Talos' thumb and however many more he was in the country before that. "Okay, so, what's he doing in L.A.?"

"Studying," Dex reached over and opened the file since none of them seemed to be willing to start the slog through the material he had copiously collected. "Enrolled in U.C.L.A. as an undergrad in 1994."

"That makes him, what, twenty, twenty-one when Danica found him, according to his information?" Sommerfield frowned.

"Yeah, there's a police report dated October 1997 when his parents filed a missing persons complaint."

"Say what?" Abby woke as if from a stupor. She didn't know what threw her off more--that King's parents had reported him missing or that he had parents at all. "What's the report say?"

"Not much, unfortunately," Dex flipped through to a photocopy with letterhead from a local precinct. "They questioned people who had seen him last, and his roommate said he hadn't seen him in a month by the time the parents called."

"A _month_? And no one said anything?" Abby did some quick calculations. The undergraduate population of a school like U.C.L.A. was huge, in the tens of thousands, but _still_, surely _someone _missed him before a month.

"Remember," Sommerfield held up a finger, "that we're talking about college kids. I know you're out of the loop on this, Abby, but college years are the ones to really cut loose." Sommer's smile was a tad too revealing; obviously, in her wild-oat years, she'd partied with the best of them. Clearing her throat, Sommerfield continued, "Also, our friend is a self-confessed lothario. He may well have disappeared under a woman's skirt for just as long previously. It just happened this time that he picked the wrong skirt." Sommerfield smirked, quite obviously finding this situation to be, as she had said before, divine retribution for the female gender.

"What about the parents?" Abby returned to the facts and ignored Sommer's snarky comment. "Did they give up or what?"

"No, the case is still open. They've made a few trips down here to collect possessions, talk with police. I even talked to a private investigator's firm, and they confirmed that the Kings hired a PI."

"What did the PI say?" Abby could not shake the feeling that a family close enough to hire a detective on their own would not have let their son just disappear for five years. There had to have been something pretty significant to scare them off or make them fear the worst.

Dex confirmed her suspicion with another sorrowful shake of his head. "Dead."

"They get him?" Hedges asked, rabidly interested. "For poking around?"

"Guy had his throat ripped out," Dex nudged aside one paper-clipped stack to show another police report. This one, however, had pictures. As one, the group tried not to pay them too much attention, Sommer being the only one who succeeded.

"So it was dropped?"

"By hook or by crook," Dex grumbled. "The firm detached itself from any cases that he had been handling, refunding money, just getting out of it. They didn't _want_ to tell me that it had happened at all," Dex smiled, flexing his hands and cracking his knuckles. So, the information had not come to him willingly; that was the best kind of reconnaissance.

"Where does that leave us?" Abby frowned. This told them only about the past. They needed to know about the current situation, needed to know where they could safely transfer King when he fully recovered. "Where are the parents now?"

"Montreal," Dex said shrugging. "They kept the girl closer to home."

"Girl?" Sommerfield's eyebrow raised over her sunglasses.

"He has a sister, name of Eliza, she goes to McGill."

Silence greeted this new information. If it was hard to imagine someone like King coming from flesh and blood parents and not just from a vampire's playpen, it was harder still to picture him with a sibling. Another King? Good lord.

"Is the sister cute?" Hedges joked, breaking the spell. Probably, Abby would wager, given King's profile. A sister coming from the same gene pool, how could nature miss?

"How old?" Abby managed after a moment, shutting down her brain before it could wander too far afield.

"She's twenty-two."

"That makes her four years younger?" Abby did the math; King's sister was a year older than her, making her about the same age when King disappeared as Abby had been when she'd found her father. At the same time of life that one girl lost a brother, another had gained a father and a calling. For no reason at all, she pitied the girl. Losing King might be no skin off Abby's nose, but his family probably felt differently.

"That's right."

"Well," Sommer tapped her fingers on the table, "what do we do now?"

"We try to contact the parents," Abby said, firmly. "They'll want to know he's alive."

"Maybe," Sommer murmured, unconvinced.

"What's on your mind, Sommer?" Hedges inquired. They usually thought in tandem; where Sommerfield led in terms of innovation, Hedges followed through on design. So, if Sommerfield sensed a problem, Hedges usually had the solution. He just had to have the question first.

"We have to assume that the vampires are privy to this information as well. If they killed the PI, chances are very good they know what he knew."

"And would know things about King's background," Hedges supplemented. "He probably also told them stuff, you know, before things went south."

"Yes," Sommerfield seized on this, "and that would include any pick-up lines where his foreign citizenship worked as a lure." In the collective air of skepticism, she narrowed her brow at them all. "What? Canada _is_ technically another country."

"Not by much," Dex laughed.

"Yes, but he's from Montreal?"

"Looks like. So what?"

"He probably speaks French. Quebec is infamous for its bilingual society. It's the law to have signs and such in both French and English all over." Sommerfield crossed her arms, clucking at them, "Never underestimate the attraction of a man with an accent and the ability to spout love-talk in French."

"He's never said any of this to us," Abby pouted, unhappily. Somehow, something like the ability to speak another language ought to be more evident. It was a stupid assumption, perhaps, but King liked to show off. Why wouldn't any of this have come out?

"Canadian modesty?" Sommerfield chuckled to herself, sensing the looks of disbelief she could not see. "Okay, that's a stretch and it's stereotyping."

Hedges rolled his eyes. "Modesty is a bit more than a _stretch_, Sommer." Hedges had a point; no subject was taboo with King, even those which were personally embarrassing. Rather, he seemed to thrive on throwing out his faults and foibles, as if to make himself more lovable. Or something.

"Culture shock?" Sommerfield redirected. "Most Québécois don't make a big deal of being bilingual. They're not _the_ French, they just speak it. Montreal is a delight to visit, actually. People speaking French who aren't desperately rude."

"Are you sure King's not French then?"

"_Hedges_," Abby warned him. To Dex, she nodded, asking, "What about the family? Any new developments with them since we boosted King?"

"Nope," Dex shook his head. "I called information, got their number, gave the house a call a few times over the past week while I was collecting this stuff," he gestured to the file folder spread out on the table. "I got Mrs. King twice, Mr. King once. Tried the sister at her apartment, got an answering machine and the roommate, but the roommate said she'd seen the girl only the night before. I'm not worried about them."

"I would be," Sommerfield intoned, her mood souring.

"Because that's the first place Talos is going to look for him," Hedges finished for her.

"Exactly."

"So," Abby huffed, nonplussed. "Where does that leave us? We can't send him back there?"

"I wouldn't recommend it." Sommerfield was quiet a moment, working out her thoughts. "If we assume Danica Talos knows where King is from, or, at the very least, could find out easily from clues he gave her or the file the PI had accumulated, Montreal is the first place she'd look."

"How would King get past customs and immigration? He has no passport."

"There are thousands of miles of border between us an Canada, sweetie," Hedges wagged a finger at her. "I'm betting it wouldn't be too hard, even with the post-9/11 security issues."

"We should keep monitoring them, just to be sure they're okay," Sommerfield suggested to an unreceptive audience.

"Why?"

"King might want to know."

"Oh," Abby said, sucking in a quick breath, "Are we telling him? Suppose he wants to go back up north and the vampires are waiting?"

Sommerfield cocked her head to the side, a curious gesture which meant she was parsing through what had--and_ hadn't_--been said _very_ carefully. "You don't want him to go?"

"I don't want innocent people to die because he's an idiot and wants his mommy," Abby dismissed the inquiry.

"And your solution is just not to tell him?"

"If it's lying for his own good, and theirs, then yes."

"What makes you think he won't just take off after them unprepared?" Hedges cast a shrewd eye at her. "It might be better to give him some warning."

"Maybe this is all irrelevant," Dex interrupted before Abby could snap at Hedges. All turned to him, expectant. "The family stopped all their inquiries about two years after the PI died. It's possible they moved on. King might be ready to do the same."

"Telling him that might discourage him from contacting them." Hedges picked up what he wanted to hear out of Dex's incisive analysis.

"You _want_ him to stay?" Abby gave Hedges her best bewildered expression. Of all people.

"Well," Hedges backpedaled, flustered. "Not really, but I'm with you. I don't want people to die because he does something stupid."

"I included _us_ in that, Hedges. He's too dangerous to keep around here."

"Because Danica Talos might come looking for him?" Something in Sommerfield's tone screamed _'liar, liar!_' Abby ignored it. "Well, there's no one better than us to keep him safe."

"Bullshit," Abby swore. "No way am I babysitting this clown."

"Make him useful, then," Sommer said with some finality, pleased at reaching a workable solution.

"I volunteer Abby for _that_ job," Hedges said at once. Dex laughed, nodding. "Think about it, Abby. You could go hunting together and everything." This was too much for Hedges, whose smile cracked wider before he finally burst into a fit of giggles.

"Not a chance in Hell," Abby snapped. When and _if_ she ever took a partner out with her on hunts, other than the occasional jaunt where Dex played get-away driver, it would not be someone more likely to watch her backside than her back.

"We'll figure something out," Sommerfield placated, ever perceptive to the hard feelings in the room. "For now, Abby can help him get rehabilitated with Dex. Hedges, if he survives, you get to train him on the gear."

"And you, Sommer?" Abby hissed. "What are _you_ going to contribute here?"

"I've got Daystar to worry about. And Zoe." It was a low blow, and a damned effective one, dragging her five-year-old daughter into the fight, and Sommer knew it. How could they argue with that? They'd promised her not to interfere where Zoe's education and upbringing were concerned.

"I don't like this," Abby said, resigned and exhausted because of how well she knew it.

"You might," Sommerfield waved her off. "But this is as good a solution as we've got for now."

"And what if he doesn't want to play ball with us? Not everyone is able to kill and move on," Abby reminded her. They'd lost a few would-be Nightstalkers for that very reason.

"I'm betting a former vampire won't have that much problem with killing, Abby," Sommerfield said, darkly. No one in the room contradicted her. She was only too right.


	2. The Body is a Weapon

**2. The Body is a Weapon**

* * *

****There was something too normal, too plebeian about jogging as a hobby or a sport for someone like her. When she was nine, her karate sempai told her she had to exercise to keep in shape, and she picked, of all the girly activities in the world, gymnastics. Karate had fallen by the way side by the time she joined the Nightstalkers, but she still practiced her tumbles and floor routines whenever she got the chance. Yoga kept her limber, and her body remembered the rest. 

Per Sommerfield's suggestion, she had informed King that he would be working out with her in the mornings. Her workouts would bend him; Dex's would probably break him. Since he had no immediately foreseeable alternatives other than remaining with the Nightstalkers, and had expressed no opinions about leaving--remarkable, seeing as he had opinions about everything else--King agreed to show up at the crack of dawn, on her schedule, to begin his physical rehabilitation.

He arrived noisily, looking haggard and too skinny in a pair of Dex's spare sweat pants and a shirt with the sleeves cut off. Eyeing her warily, he eventually dropped onto the mat, sitting Indian-style, bracing himself on his hands and reclining backwards. She could understand his hesitation. Hedges still flinched whenever he caught her in this particular stretch, a straddle-split, toes pointed at opposite walls.

"You can relax, King," she reassured him, bending at the waist and extending her arms out in front of her. Her long fingers reached clear across the space between him and brushed his shin where he sat. "I don't expect you to ever be able to do this," she said into the mat.

"That's sexist." She almost laughed in his face. Who was _he_ to make that complaint?

"It's realistic," Abby grunted as she pulled herself up, straight backed. "I wouldn't be able to do it if I stopped practicing."

"How long have you been able to do that?" He nodded, without looking, at her split.

"Since I was ten." She stretched herself out over her left leg, touching her nose to her knee.

"When I was ten," King said, scratching absently at the back of his head, "I learned to ride a unicycle."

Sommerfield had pulled her aside after their little pow-wow to instruct her to take a personal interest in King's recovery. She had to start giving two shits about his life, his former life, and that meant listening and responding. Unused to it, Abby could only come up with a moderately dismissive, "How nice for you."

"Anything you can do something stupid in or on, and I'm there," King grinned. "My uncle was a clown. I got to ride unicycles and juggle machetes before I was old enough to drive."

"Uncle?" This kind of information was more useful. An uncle, perhaps, might be able to take him off their hands.

"Yeah, you know, family. The thing none of you seem to want to talk about much around me."

Abby sat up, changing sides and stretching over her right leg. "It's not come up, really."

"Well, I just brought it up. So, let's talk." King leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. "You talked about your dad before, when I redecorated the bathroom with my stomach."

"Yes," Abby fought a smile. "He kills vampires for a living."

"Family business, huh?"

Abby inhaled deeply as she rose this time, fixing him critically before answering. "If you're asking if I got into it for him, the answer is no."

"I see. You're more civic-minded. Wanted to make a difference. Fight for truth, justice, and the American way."

"Not really," Abby shrugged, drawing her legs in easily, pressing her feet together and tucking her heels in towards her body. Sitting like this, almost a mirror image of him, she was able to get her knees to lay flat on the ground while his hovered somewhere at the upper limit of what gravity would allow. Stretching _him_ out would take a lot of work.

"So, why do this? Why spend your days on the stake and the permanent crimson wave?"

"I got into it to hurt people," she said, raising her chin defiantly.

King's expression didn't change. "If that was supposed to impress me, it worked."

"I'm not joking, King," she snipped, leaning over her legs until she could feel the pull on her inner thighs.

"I know. You don't have a sense of humor."

She looked up sharply at him, ignoring a flaring urge to snap back at him. It wouldn't help. They were supposed to work together. Bickering would only sour whatever compassion and patience she had for him after seeing what he went through to become human again.

She sat up again, resolved to make the best of this. "Sit like I'm sitting, King. It's time to get started."

"Yoga is a _chick_ thing, Whistler," he groused while struggling to comply. His legs refused to form into the neat figure hers did. When he stopped fighting and shifting, she considered his form. Instead of her tight, compact folding, his legs came together in a roughly diamond shape, with his knees a foot off the floor and his feet at least as far from his body.

Continuing to lead, she bent down slowly, keeping her back straight, and extending her arms out in front of her. She heard no sound of him moving to copy her, so she waited for his inevitable commentary.

"That looks...painful," he said, helpfully, as she held her breath and counted.

"It was, once."

"And then what?"

"I got used to it."

"Jesus, Whistler, it's not like beer or sex or something important. You don't get _used_ to pain." Abby glanced up to catch the skepticism on his face. She had to concede he had due cause to dislike physical pain. Lord knows, the vampires had probably subjected him to enough of it over the past few years.

"It's different from an injury," she pulled back up, regarding him with a neutral expression. "It's a _good_ pain."

"I have yet to meet this good pain of which you speak."

"If you'd stop whining, you might," she sighed, lifting herself up. It was an old dance move, crossing one leg over with the other bent at the knee and pushing off with the top leg and twirling up. Ignoring his delighted expression, Abby walked around him, dropping to her knees at his back. "Cooperate, already, King."

King turned his head to the side. "I don't know, that was pretty hot, Whistler. I might have to misbehave some more." As ever, what came out of his mouth seemed not to be indicative of his inclinations, and before she could push him, King made a half-effort at bowing over his legs.

"I'm going to help you," she said in his ear, "I'll push against your back. When it hurts, tell me."

"Are you going to stop?" He sounded like he wanted to laugh but couldn't for the strain.

"No."

"I'm having the weirdest sense of deja vu. You're sure you don't have fangs, right?" King grumbled, though he nodded. Abby leaned against him, pushing against the mat to counteract the stiffness and inflexibility of his body. She watched the shadow they cast on the mat carefully. He made a forty-five degree angle above his lap before she heard him gasp.

"Hurts?"

"No," he grated. Abby shook her head--s_tubborn_--but did not press him any farther, merely held constant against him and kept him in place. His legs started to twitch and shake, but he clamped his hands down over his knees, and they stayed like this for a full thirty count.

"Enough," Abby said, finally, easing the pressure, King falling back against her every step. "This," she elbowed him, "is going to take a long time."

"It's going to take longer if you keep jabbing me in the kidneys, Whistler."

A retort was halfway to her lips when, without the help of her force, King pushed his body forward again, breathing in short gasps every few seconds, eyes closed, body shuddering in protest. She did not stop him, only observed. The attempt was pathetic, but the intent was sincere.

"Be careful, you don't want to strain anything your first day."

"Other than my pride, you mean," he said in a rush, leaning back on his hands once more. "If only my friends could see me now."

"Friends?" Other than the aside about his uncle, which she couldn't be sure was fact, this was the first time he'd volunteered any information about his life before Danica Talos. She felt almost greedy for the knowledge now that she was aware of its import.

"It might be hard to imagine for a social butterfly such as yourself, but I did have a few."

"And they let you walk off with Danica Talos?"

"_Let _me? They _dared_ me."

"And then forgot about you," she prodded. This might be a good time to mention what they had learned, break it to him easily. Of course, none of the others thought she ought to be the one to do it. Dex or Sommer, they were more 'caring,' Hedges had said. Whatever.

"They forgot, huh?" King looked over his shoulder at her.

"Says our information. Your roommate didn't think anything of you being gone for a month."

"Let's see, what happened after a month? Where was I?" He mused, thinking aloud but to himself, so she held her tongue. "I don't think she'd marked me by then. I think I was still having a good time." His lips twitched oddly, and one eyelid trembled involuntarily. "Memories," he sing-songed.

"You had a _good_ time with a vampire?"

His roguish grin returned, banishing the sickly thing that had trespassed on his lips. "I have a good time with every woman I sleep with...at first. Interested?"

"No, thanks," she said, flatly, though she could not deny her intrigue quite as easily as his invitation. What on _earth_ would be so good about an extended relationship with a vampire? Aside from the promise of eternal life, which he seemed not to want?

"Danica was pretty creative, too," his tone was playful, even wistful, but there was an underlying sadness. It struck her, that note that might go unheard to an untrained ear. It reminded her of before, when he'd not been upset that she would have killed him if he failed to survive the cure. Like he was upbeat against his will, almost.

"Do you miss her?" Abby attempted dry humor, wanting nothing more than for him to chuckle or shrug it off, which he did.

"Like a hole in the head. She was selfish."

Abby frowned, disappointed. "That's it? You ditched her and came with me because she's selfish? I thought she was _creative_," Abby clucked at him.

"Yeah, but mostly about new ways to get off without me doing the same. That's cool for a while, but sooner or later, a guy needs to blow his load."

"_Lovely_," Abby snorted, sorry she'd asked. "Men."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He turned halfway around to see her better.

"You have abandon all survival instinct when it conflicts with getting laid."

King shrugged. "Unless your bent runs to sex with cougars, moving objects, or electric sockets, usually it's not a problem."

"And vampires are what, exactly? Cuddly teddy bears?"

"Not supposed to exist," he wagged a finger at her.

"Well, they do."

He raised an eyebrow at her simple rebuttal, turning away as he spoke, "Thanks for the newsflash. You couldn't have brought this to my attention, say, five years ago?"

"I didn't know you then," she offered, lamely. The mild rancor in his words propelled them into an interminable silence, which she sought to end by reaching out to place her hands on his shoulders, ready to resume the aborted workout. He started, surprised, only settling down when she began to position him again into the stretch. His reaction was instinctive, defensive, expecting one kind of pain to visit him--the random, vicious, scarring kind--versus the one she brought, pain that molded, reshaped, and rebuilt. It stirred her pity, and damn him for that.

"Did you ever think about trying to escape before I found you?" She murmured in his ear, watching his expression closely. His eyes were shut against the creaking stiffness of his joints as, together, they forced his chest lower over his legs.

"Lots. Of. Times," King hissed.

"Why didn't you leave?"

"Never got close to being healthy enough. Too tired." Yes, she remembered. The black circles on the pallid face, the weak pulse, the wasted figure, the strange bedraggled man with steel will and determination that could not be realized in the body left to him. Some sleep, immense fluid courses, and EDTA later, and that man was beginning to fade under the sparkle and pep of the one who had been subdued for five long years. The one she had to mold into a hunter.

"Did you ever try to contact your family or friends?"

King opened one eye, cocking his head slightly in the direction of her voice. "Why do you ask? What do you know?"

"We know," was all she would reveal, pushing him another inch to distract and dissipate his anger by focusing it productively on fighting his body, not her. "What do _you_ want to know?" He held his breath, gasping as she forced him farther down. "Ask me."

"Are they," King wheezed, close to breaking, "are they okay?"

"Yes," Abby relented, easing off, King slumping back with her. She let him, not protesting as she sank backwards onto her legs and his head fell into her lap. Despite his careless, flirty attentions, and that one stolen kiss, he was no threat and did not exploit her small kindnesses. He didn't open his eyes as he breathed heavily for a short while. Idly, she stroked his hair, taking note of his temperature. Slightly elevated, even after two weeks, but nothing to worry about.

After a minute of this, she spoke, breaking the stillness. "Do you want to know more?"

King shifted, laying his cheek against her thigh. "Maybe. Depends on what the news is, doesn't it?"

"It's good. Or, at least, average."

King blinked, turning his head so he could look up at her. "Abigail."

"Yes?"

"You're a vampire-hunting hottie running the family business at age," here, he hesitated, squinting at her, trying to work it out, guessing, "twenty--"

"Twenty-one," she protested, suddenly very defensive of that year's difference.

"Either way, a barely-legal babe who kills the undead. What the _hell_ do you know about 'average'?"

Point. What else could she do but just come out and tell him? "Your parents live in Montreal. Your sister is a senior at McGill."

"That's pretty normal, I guess," King didn't sound as if he approved.

Abby mock-frowned at him, putting her hands on her hips. "You're a barely living ex-vampire love slave. What the hell do _you_ know about normal, King?"

"You don't shoot to wound, do you?" He clapped one hand over his heart, but the passing melancholy had vanished; she heard the laughter under the straight delivery.

"Be glad I don't. You wouldn't be alive if that were the case."

"Mmm," King let his eyes fall shut. "So, what's next? Not that I mind this," he reached over his shoulder to pat her on the thigh, overreached and got her ass instead.

"More of the same," she bent to whisper in his ear. Upon seeing his contented smirk, she jerked her legs out from under him; his head fell back against the mat, and he grunted, all without losing his good-humored smirk. Typical. Abby rose, walking around him and settling down into another split, one leg in front, the other behind. King hauled himself up into a sitting position, staring disconcerted at her.

"Now you're just showing off."

"I like to think of it as challenging you."

"Ah," King point his index finger at her, thumb upwards. _Bang_, gotcha. "A challenge. I like those."

"So I've heard." Shifting, she drew herself up far enough to slide her back leg forward and sit with both legs straight out in front of her, waiting for him to follow suit. He did, one _'why me?'_ sigh later, legs trembling even in a reclined position. She shook her head. "This is going to take a lot of work."

"I'm good for it," he tossed back at her, head lolling to the side. "Whatever doesn't kill me."

Nothing had managed to so far, she realized. That was more than a little scary, all things considered.


	3. The Rest is History

**3. The Rest is History**

* * *

King regularly kept her company in the twilight hours for the next two weeks. In the mornings, she contorted him, pulled him apart; in the afternoons, Dex trained him, built him up. Sommerfield monitored his weight and diet, and Zoe formed a one-girl cheer-and-jeer squad. Sommer had been behind that. "He works harder when there are ladies to impress," she had told Abby, smiling secretively and knowingly, which was more than a little annoying. Subtle, Sommer wasn't. 

Another meeting later, they agreed to allow him access to the talents of their last member. It wasn't easy, trusting him with this last, most important aspect of their lives. But he'd earned it, and, as far as they could tell, he wanted it. Even if he didn't know it yet.

"Hedges," Abby nodded to him as she approached, slurping on her bottled water, King in tow. They were both sweaty from the usual aerobics and yogic stretching, King more so. The nice thing about leaving him with Hedges for the later morning would be the chance to expand her routines, return to her normal activity. But, first things first.

"Morning," Hedges mumbled. Depending on which way you looked at their schedule, it was either his relative late, late night, or far too early into his morning, and it showed.

"Are we getting Hedges on the treadmill with us today?" King inquired, lightly, teasingly. Abby bit down on a grin; in the two weeks King had been exercising regularly, he'd walked, run, biked, or climbed more miles than Hedges did in a year, and he knew it.

"I have better uses for my time," Hedges huffed.

"Hedges is brilliant," Abby placated him. "And brilliance is its own form of exercise."

"Why can't I just sit around being brilliant, too, then?"

"It's a question of raw material," Hedges countered. "Some of us have it, others don't."

"Play nice, boys, or we're all doing splits tomorrow." She watched King wince at this, if only internally. It was getting easier to read his reactions, even those he did not outwardly display. "Hedges, if you will?"

"Certainly," Hedges clapped and rubbed his hangs together as he surveyed his bench. "Where to start?"

She had an idea. "How much experience do you have with handguns, King?"

He answered honestly after a moment. "None. Never had them at home." That made sense. Few, if any, countries were as perversely attracted to guns as the U.S., Canada included.

"Something light, Hedges." Abby instructed, and Hedges plucked up a tiny .22 from his table, offering it to King.

He eyed it without taking it from Hedges. "What is this?"

"It's a standard twenty-two caliber pistol, nothing too fancy. Old ladies carry them in their handbags in L.A."

"Damn," King snapped his fingers, "Left my purse back at Danica's. Abby, you have one I can borrow?" She gave him a look. "Seriously, what am I going to do with this?"

"Learn how to shoot it without breaking your arm," Hedges informed him, cheerfully. Hedges hadn't gotten a chance to lord over King much in return for all the teasing he got. He obviously relished this opportunity. "There's a target range outside. This one's loaded with standard ammo. When you start hitting more padding and less air, we might trust you with something more dangerous."

"We have a system," Abby elaborated before King could mouth off again. "There are levels of comfort and skill with weapons. To give you an idea, Zoe is a level ten."

"A level ten."

"It means she's set foot on the shooting range and fired something at the opposite end. It means she's held a weapon in her life."

"You mean she ran out there once with her teddy bear and threw it farther than the reach of her arm." King crossed his arms, petulant. "No way does that _kid_ rate any level on any scale."

"She does on mine," Abby said, defensively.

"Mine, too," Hedges chimed in, smugly. And you don't, he didn't need to say.

"Sommerfield," Abby continued, "is a level nine."

"Wait a second, just wait," King held up both his hands. "You're telling me I rank somewhere below a kid and a blind woman when it comes to being able to defend myself?" Soberly, Abby nodded. "Okay, just wanted to know where I stood. At the bottom of the shit pile. Why am I not surprised?"

"Cut it out, King," Abby made chopping motion with her hand to silence him. "This is serious."

"Sommerfield is a nine," Hedges continued, gleefully, "because she knows how to fire several weapons without hurting herself. We run into familiars often enough that being able to shoot in the right direction is a worth knowing how to do. If she can locate them with her ears, Sommer's not a bad shot." Lost in his admiration, Hedges missed King cocking his head sharply, regarding Hedges seriously at the mention of 'familiars.' It wasn't a term they'd used much around him. One more conversation that had not yet happened but would have to.

Moving on, Abby picked up the thread where she left off. "You move up in levels first based on your general, operational knowledge of a variety of weapons," she ticked off on one finger. "Second to that is your skill with the weapon, your comfort with it and ability to use it safely."

"Last," Hedges finished, "is accuracy."

"And, when these powers are combined, I am Captain Planet. Yeah, yeah, what else?"

"Listen to Hedges, King," Abby warned. "If you want to be a help to us, you need to be proficient."

"Abigail, here, is a level one," Hedges beamed at her.

"Which means she's handy with many tools."

Jutting out her chin, defiantly, Abby stated, primly, "Without a scope, I can hit a target at a hundred yards if I had to. And I don't take out anyone with me who's not at least a level five."

King looked her over, searching for the chinks she knew he would never find. Her abilities, she did not doubt, though the intensity and focus of his gaze unnerved her. "By 'take out,' you mean...?"

"Take hunting."

"Hunting vampires."

"Of course," she said, unsure of where he wanted to take this. Why else would they keep him around? "We figured we might as well make you useful while you're with us."

Something had not yet sunk in. "You want _me_ to kill vampires?"

"Not yet," Hedges interrupted, drawing King's attention away from her, for which she was thankful. He might have stared a hole through her otherwise. "It was a thought we had."

"No one bothered to ask me."

"Okay," Abby said. Enough of this. "I'm asking you now. Do you want to kill vampires?"

King opened his mouth once, then shut it, reconsidering. "I know of _one_ I'd like to see dead," he began, haltingly. "But I don't know about doing..." King gestured helplessly at the weapons in front of him and at Abby, "this," he ended, limply.

"I'm not asking you to do it yet," Abby urged him. "Just giving you the chance to try."

"I don't know," King grumbled, his eyes on his shoes. "I didn't really think..."

"What, King? What's bugging you about this?" He would truly be inhuman if he could jump right into their line of work with no debate or doubt. If they could work through that, however, he might just be worth the effort as a hunter.

King scratched his chin, at the two-day old stubble there. To the casual observer, he appeared unshaven, unkempt. However, unlike his clothes, which were disheveled from belonging to a man twice his size, his growing beard was a _choice_, not a consequence. As he figured out how to phrase his concerns, Abby traced with her eyes the definite lines King had shaved into his face. They were a tad wobbly, amorphous because of short growth and lack of practice, but it was a purposefully groomed pattern, and, insanely, it gave her hope. Another attempt to regain something lost was another step in the right direction.

"I guess," King said, finally, "I guess I just never thought about it."

"Go on," Abby encouraged him.

"I've gotten my ass kicked by a woman half my size for years. I'm just used to thinking that way, which is why I'm scared of Whistler." She smiled, holding her tongue, waiting out his sarcasm for the next fit of seriousness. "It honestly never occurred to me. Plus, my guidance counselor said I should be an investment banker."

Abby couldn't suppress a snort at this. "That's hard to imagine."

He winked at her. "I look pretty good in a suit." And she didn't doubt it. He looked pretty good in Dex's hand-me-downs, malnourished and underweight as he was.

"Well," Hedges said, returning to the matter at hand, "We'd be happy to get you on a flight to New York and the stock exchange if you're not interested." He started to put the twenty-two away, but King slapped his hand down on the weapon.

"I didn't say I wasn't interested," he kept his eyes locked with hers. Desperation there. "What kind of benefits do you offer?"

"Revenge, mostly," Abby answered, honestly.

"Security?"

"Only what you take the trouble to make for yourself."

"And what," King swallowed, fighting pride that would otherwise hold back the words, "what about..."

"What about your family?"

"Yeah. I ought to let them know I'm alive."

"Why? Would they miss you?" Hedges broke in, flustered by the unspoken communication between them that he was not privy to.

"They might not," King said, absently, still staring into her, through her, past her. Hedges took this as more of King's flippancy, but, in his eyes, Abby could see the hurt. How could someone so careless care so much?

"You can contact them, if you wish. I wouldn't recommend it."

"Connections to our past lives are usually dangerous for all parties involved," Hedges explained. "Vampire budgets are bigger than ours, they have more resources, more eyes out there than we do. We've only managed to escape discovery by being cautious, operating autonomously."

King, finally, shifted his gaze to Hedges. "You guys sound like terrorists."

"We're really just misunderstood."

"Vampires make the rules in this game," Abby expanded. Why had she said that? King was staring at her again, his face blank on the surface, the expressions lurking underneath. Uncanny, how he could hide any reaction if he wanted to. "Vampires," she began again, "isolate people, trap them, either in their service or as their victims. My father lost his family to vampires. I lost my father to this," she gestured to the room around them. "Sommerfield lost her husband, Dex lost his brother."

"And Hedges lost his stair master."

"Not funny," Abby warned. With Hedges present, she was loath to give up his reasons for joining the Nightstalkers.

He saved her. "I was almost taken in by a vampire."

"Like you, only he wised up at the last minute," Abby pronounced, triumphant. "Hedges, as I said, is brilliant."

"Or maybe he just didn't have the right raw material for the job. Maybe he got passed over and is still getting back at the vampires for it."

"Keep pushing, tough guy," Hedges smiled, dangerously. "I'm the man who gives you what you need to defend yourself."

"In other words, you're not the one I want mad at me if join the vampire scouts."

"Nightstalkers," she corrected him.

"What?"

"We call ourselves Nightstalkers."

"You're kidding."

Abby crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't have a sense of humor, remember?"

"Yeah, but there's sense of humor and there's..." he trailed off, glancing between her and Hedges. "You're serious."

"Deadly serious," she confirmed, raising an eyebrow that dared him to find fault, to make a joke. "Are we quite finished?"

"I had more, but you go ahead."

"Hedges, ammo demo, please." Moving around the table behind Hedges, she watched as he brought forth various types of ammunition in a variety of calibers. As he designed all their bullets, and as all were custom jobs, each type of vampire-specific bullet sported a unique pattern to distinguish them from one another.

"This one," Hedges picked up a .45 caliber bullet with a blue-tinted top circled by a silver spiral, "contains chemicals akin to what you would find in a disposable glow stick. Crack the tip, and the chemicals fuse and emit a burst of UV light. They're explosive rounds, so the chemicals mix on impact, and boom, presto, miniature daylight that chews right through your average vampire."

"Sun dog," King rechristened it.

"Hey, that's not bad," Hedges admitted, smiling and scratching his cheek. "Not bad. Sun dog," he tried it out.

"Next," Abby prodded him along. Hedges was a genius inventor, to be sure, but he lacked any talent where names were concerned. The UV bullet had been invented as the 'UV bullet,' and not gone any farther. Maybe he and King could get along after all, one designing the weapons, the other naming them something appropriately fetishistic; it increased the bad-ass factor, something Hedges sorely lacked.

Hedges selected a bullet with a silver tip. "Silver hollow points. Your typical hollow point crumples on impact, making it hard to trace using traditional ballistics methods. This one contains silver nitrate, a toxic substance in its own right, and one that, if placed near the vampire heart, will seep into it."

King took the bullet from Hedges. "You don't need a direct hit with one of these."

"Not necessarily, no," Abby explained. "It helps, but if you don't hit the sweet spot, you at least will probably still get him."

He tossed the bullet up in the air and caught it, weighing it in his palm, thoughtfully. "So, you don't have to line up your lucky sevens to hit the jackpot. Cool."

She shrugged. "More or less." It was a fair analogy of the odds. Getting a close but not direct hit with a silver hollow point would ash the vamp nine times out of ten.

"We have similar ones," Hedges indicated a nearly identical bullet on the table. This one had a copper-colored tip. "Garlic-filled."

"Garlic," King deadpanned. "That's movie bullshit."

"It's not usually fatal," Hedges hastened to add. "It stings them, mostly, burns like a son of a bitch if injected or ingested."

"It's for interrogative purposes." Abby ignored King's non-expression of incredulity. The change in his features was subtle, but a tiny jump of his eyebrows, the downward tilt of his head, all spoke of disbelief. "We haven't used it much. It's for subduing vampires long enough to ask them one, maybe two questions."

"Then you sic the nastier stuff on them."

"Exactly."

"So, what we have here are the basics, all you'll ever need to kick ass and kiss ash. Except for stakes, of course," Hedges rubbed his hands together, pleased with himself.

"Stakes." King had stopped asking questions and just begun conveying confusion or skepticism by repeating the offending phrase until an explanation was forthcoming. It was a perversely successful tactic with Hedges, who abhorred a conversational vacuum almost as much as King.

"Silver stakes," Hedges quickly produced one, holding it out for King to inspect. Abby watched his arm dip under the unexpected weight. A pure silver stake less than half a foot long and two inches in diameter weighed close to five pounds; theirs were a bit lighter, as the core was constructed around an alloy, but there was enough silver coating the stake to give it considerable heft.

King rolled it around between his palms, fingering the bottom and looking, significantly at her. "Where do you put the batteries in, Abby?"

"Not funny," she said, automatically, though it sort of was. Plenty of times, she'd thought the same. Sign of a weak mind, finding phallic symbols in anything longer than it was wide. But it did _sort of_ look like...ahem.

"So, what's this for?" King held the stake in a fist, stabbing at the air in front of him. "For when you want to get up close and personal?"

"Sometimes. If you're good, you can throw it and hit your target." Abby raised her chin. She was that good.

"I'm working on a rifle, actually," Hedges brought over his latest project, what they affectionately referred to as 'the Beast.' "The army discontinued use of these three-barrel rifles last year. I've got loads of spare parts to work with. With a little more elbow grease, they'll be able to fire stakes." He glanced, nervous, at her. She nodded. Why not make his day? Hedges beamed. "Abby's dad wants one."

"Buttering up dear old dad before you pop the question. Real smooth, Hedges. If it were my daughter, I'd say yes." Hedges paled then flushed. King had no idea what he was talking about.

"It's not for him," Abby informed him. "It's for his partner. My father mainly works on weapons, like Hedges."

"Ah, so he's _brilliant_," King nodded, sagely.

"Very," Hedges said, reverently. Hedges prayed to a sacred trinity of slayers: her, for a variety of reasons mostly unrelated to killing vampires, Blade, and, at the top, her father. She prized the hunt, Hedges valued the ingenuity. Though he built upon, tinkered with, even surpassed Whistler senior's gift of invention, Hedges would hear nothing of displacing the man who started it all.

"Father's partner," King repeated, pointedly.

"Yes. He's part of a team, like us."

"Not like you, though."

"I don't need a partner."

"Don't want," King corrected her, and Abby's protest died in her throat with her mouth halfway open. She didn't want a partner, that much was true. But it was also fair to say she didn't need one-_hadn't_ needed one yet.

"Either," she confessed, unrepentant. "I manage on my own."

"Not really," Hedges rolled his eyes. For the first time since bringing them together, Hedges and King shared a joke at her expense. "Abby, honey, we love you, but we'd like to love you a lot longer."

"Me too," King said, intensely. His face remained still, impassive, but his eyelids opened a little wider-he was only half-joking. The little things, it was always the little things that gave him away.

"You wouldn't believe the state this girl's in when she gets back. Sommerfield is going to put her on an allowance. For every dollar we waste on stitching her up and putting all her various parts back into place, she gets one less mp3."

King made a face at that. "What's an Em-Pee-three?"

Abby blinked, stunned, at him. "You really don't know?" A bewildered glance at Hedges proved him to be just as taken aback. "It's a digital music file."

"Like a CD?"

"Well, like a-a _track_ on one," Abby stammered. This had happened more than once already in his short tenure among the Nightstalkers. Someone would make dated joke, gabble excitedly about a new gadget, and King's expressionless face would go that much blanker. It was hard to remember, given how little he admitted to _not_ knowing, that, when he was subjugated to Danica Talos, the world still feared a massive Y2K computer failure.

"Here," Abby reached over and fished in Hedges' drawer for her mp3 player. It was a small thing, only one hundred-twenty-eight megabytes, and hung from a lanyard loop that fit over her head. "This is a player." King closed his hand over it, weighing it against the stake in his other hand. "In that device, I've got about thirty songs. Not all high quality, but not bad." King opened his palm, staring at the little blue player cradled there as if he expected it to explode.

Hedges cleared his throat. "If we're done marveling at _Abby's_ toys," he pushed forward the .22. Without taking his eyes off the mp3 player, King placed the stake on Hedges' workbench and felt around for the gun. "The shooting range is outside. Take this with you," Hedges produced a homemade silencer. "It won't affect your aim, not that I'm worried you'll be at a point where you'd notice. I designed this myself."

"Yeah," King murmured, still mesmerized by a piece of plastic on a string.

"I'll take him out, Hedges. You keep on the rifle. We'll want the shotgun conversion, too."

He nodded. "When are you, ah," his gaze flickered to the entranced third party and back to her, finishing the question in his eyes: _when are you going to meet _him? Him. Dear old Dad. None of the other Nightstalkers ever interacted personally with her father. It was a precaution. No code words or bullshit, just blood to blood talk. It had taken a genetic test and details provided by her, care of her mother, to convince him she was his daughter at all. After what he'd been through of late, she didn't blame him. She hadn't told him about King yet. Another reason to meet up. She already knew he wouldn't be happy, not after his own experience, not after Blade's other partner turned out to be a traitor-and another _familiar_.

Hedges shook a box of .22 ammo in her face to get her attention. King was staring at her, too, having finally given up on her mp3 player as witchcraft. "For reloads," Hedges deposited the box in her open hand. "Now, go play nice, kiddies."

"This way," she jerked her head for King to follow. "Hedges," she acknowledged him as she passed. King followed without a word, the mp3 player still in his hand. Out of Hedges' earshot, she called him on it.

"What?"

"You're still holding my player."

"Right, here," he pushed it on her, only too glad to be rid of it.

Abby raised an eyebrow. "What?" He didn't answer, his serene countenance clouded and bubbling beneath the placid surface. In such disturbed, full-to-bursting quiet, they walked out onto the deck and the target range. Seven dummies, all with red hearts painted left of center, stood a hundred feet away from the white line where her speed reader stood. With a .22, they would have to get a lot closer.

Abby stopped at about half that distance and surveyed her charge. "King," she said, sharply.

"Yes."

"No one shoots so much as a spitball on this range unless they're one-hundred-percent with me, focused, and ready. If you've got something eating you, you're excused."

"Nothing eating me, not really."

"King."

"I'm good to play cowboys and indians, Whistler."

"King."

This shut him up for all of a second, in which he came to a decision. "I want to join your club."

This had the effect of silencing _her_, and Abby struggled to find something erudite, insightful, or wise to say. She failed, and opted for the more traditional, "Why?"

Dryly, he said, "I like the perks."

What had she told him the perks were? They talked about this, at some point, during that first workout session. _Ah_. "Revenge?"

"Yes, among other things."

"What made you..." she started, realizing this sounded too close to _why_ again. "Is this because of Danica?"

"Yes and no."

"Which is it?"

"Both and neither."

"King," she sighed, exasperated. What had evinced such a change? One minute he could be utterly lost, hesitant, unsure, and the next, focused, determined, even hasty. Her fingers tumbled something in her hand. She looked down at her mp3 player. Was that it? Something so small. Little things, she reminded herself, it's always the little things. King's eyes narrowed on the device in her hand. "Because of this?"

"Because of what I've missed." He turned away, eyeing the targets at the end of the pier. "Because of what I'm still missing."

In two short sentences, he'd put to rest her fears of his impetuousness leading to ruin. In so many words, King was promising to stay, to leave the past behind, to dedicate the next years of his life to avenging the loss of the last five.

"You don't have to do this," she heard herself say. It would be years of hard work, dangerous, thankless work. His family loved him enough to seek him out, mourned him enough to keep themselves always close ever after. He had a choice. He was not the love child of man so possessed by the ghosts of his dead family that he could not see settling down with a new one. If she were forced to admit it, Abigail Whistler, vampire hunter, was jealous of Hannibal King, vampire bait, just a bit. How could such things be? "You have a choice, King. We won't make you stay or force you to leave."

"Do you regret it?" The full wattage of his personality bore down on her as he searched her through and through for a denial.

"Never a day," she answered, truthfully.

"No regrets," he repeated, slowly, purposefully screwing on the silencing attachment. It was ridiculously huge for such a small weapon, as out of place on the barrel of a .22 as King's ambition on his wasted frame.

Before she could protest, he raised his arm levelly, looking down the length of it, and squeezing off one round. Where there might otherwise have been an ear-splitting _bang_, a protracted phhhut came out instead. She scanned the target for an impact. None. King tensed his jaw, squinted, and fired again. A small tear ripped through the top of one target's arm-_not_ the target directly in front of him. As unobtrusively as she could, she stepped behind him, raising up on tip-toe as her hand moved down to hold his elbow. Awkwardly positioned, she sighted as best she could, squeezing his arm when he was targeted. He fired again. The bullet hit high in the shoulder, near the neck, but in the _right_ dummy.

"Not bad."

"Good, because my arm is killing me."

"Already?" Abby teased.

"I think I broke something."

"How would you know if you did?"

"Because," his voice rumbled in her ear, "I've had things broken for me enough times to know."

Tense, she stopped breathing, uncertain if he was joking again, making light of the true but currently irrelevant so it wouldn't bother him any more. He didn't relax his grip on the pistol, though his arm shook under hers.

Soothingly, she assured him, "We can stop. Sommer can look you over." She prepared to step back, to let him retire early. Maybe it was too soon. His free hand clamped down on hers, keeping her guiding hand in place.

Pouting, he twisted his head to see her over his shoulder. "I'm not telling her. She outranks me. She'll laugh." His muscles tensed under her hand as he brought his wobbly arm under control.

"Probably." He had that much right.

"You're supposed to be breaking me in, right?"

"Yes."

"So, break me."

"More?" She asked, astounded. This wasn't right. It was supposed to be about dragging him through it, not the other way around; instead, she guided but moved at his pace. He aimed and fired another round. Lower, this time, closer to the red, just outside the upper lobe of the heart. _Jesus_. All he did was nod, as if this result were a delayed return rather than a significant accomplishment in its own right.

"Better," he assessed himself. "Next time, I don't want to miss." The way he was going, he might not.

And did not. The second to last bullet tore through the red swatch on the sackcloth. Dumbfounded, Abby barely noticed him slipping out of her supportive embrace until he snapped his fingers in her face.

"You cheated," she said, suddenly sure of it.

He grinned. "Maybe just a little."

"How?" She demanded, surprise giving way to frustrated fury. She ought to be pleased that he possessed some skill, and she was, but he hadn't been straight with her.

"Boys will be boys, Whistler," he quipped. "I never used a handgun in my life. Buuuuuut, I got a BB gun on my thirteenth birthday."

"Son of a bitch," she swore, somewhat proudly. "In _Montreal?_" They let people fire those things in cities?

"Nah, I grew up outside of Vancouver," he drawled, stretching out the _ou_ on purpose.

"Why a BB gun?"

"Squirrels," he said, matter-of-factly. "My dad used to hunt deer. I went along for the smaller game."

"Hunter? Your father's a _hunter_?" She stammered, stymied. Where was _that_ in Dex's file?

"Hey, what do you know?" His grin lit up his face, and suddenly he was the thirteen-year-old in the woods, hot in pursuit of rodents. "Family business. Runs in the blood."

"It's not the same as hunting vampires."

"Yeah, vampires aren't as messy. On the other hand, no trophy antlers for the living room."

Despite herself, Abby smiled. "There are other trophies we can take. They mean more, in the long run."

"I'm in for the long run," King assured her, his tone severe and excited all at once.

"You don't know what you're getting into."

"Neither do you. You're getting a partner."

Abby snorted, derisively. "It'll be a cold day in Hell when that happens, King. I told you, I don't need or want one."

"Okay," he seemed to relent but for the glint in his eye. "It's okay. I'll let you be _my_ partner."

"Hell?" Abby reminded him. "Freezing over?"

"As we speak, kitten." Without checking himself or aiming, King raised the pistol again, firing off the last round in the barrel. There was a plop not too far away as it sailed past the targets and landed in the water. King watched the water lapping at the far end of the pier for a long minute before shrugging, sheepish, "Well, the AC's definitely on, at least."

She tossed him the ammo. "Have at 'em." Spinning on her heel, she waved vaguely in his direction. "Let me know when I need to get out my sweater."

And she left him to it.


End file.
